


a fistful of ash

by youlovelythief



Category: Bleach
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-21 20:28:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7402753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youlovelythief/pseuds/youlovelythief
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Orihime on top of the dome, alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a fistful of ash

He reaches out a hand to her, and they look at each other for a moment, Orihime gazing sadly at him and Ulquiorra with bags underneath his eyes. She clutches her hand to her chest and takes a step forward, and she can’t feel _bad_ for him, he is dead and dying and he _killed_ Kurosaki-kun, he deserves so much worse than dissolving into ash, so much, _so much_ —

But he had asked her of the heart. He had demanded to know why something she can’t see or touch could hold so much of her, and she had looked into his green eyes and told him that it laid with her friends, of course she couldn’t touch or feel it. But when Orihime stretches out her hand to him, she thinks of how a tiny part of it lies with him too, with that oddly peaceful day when he fell asleep in her cell. She had laid his head in her lap with a gentle, careful touch and looked down at his sleeping face, wondering how he had ended up here. She’d given him a piece of it, then, a small, insignificant bud that she gave out of pity.

But that pity has a tinge of something else now, something that feels like treachery, betrayal, he _killed Kurosaki-kun—_ sadness.

“Are you afraid of me, woman?” he asks, his voice quiet.

“I’m not afraid.”

Her voice is firm and calm, but the ash slips through her fingers.

* * *

 

When he is gone, when he is nothing but dust on the ground, Orihime kneels down, neatly folding her arrancar dress under her legs. She runs a hand along the ground and picks up a fistful of ash, and Orihime stares at her hand for a very long time, wondering, contemplating.

Of course she can bring him back.

She can simply deny he ever died, and there he would be, cradled in her arms, like when he’d fallen asleep in her cell, she could have him back right now if she just said the incantation, but he _killed Kurosaki-kun_ , remember that, Orihime, don’t ever forget the sight of him with that hole blown through his chest, strung up like a doll.

Stop playing God, Orihime, and for once, accept fate—let him die. Leave him and Hueco Mundo behind, if he lives, Kurosaki-kun will only kill him again, do you want to see his monster again? He will take you away again, he is an arrancar, he is the enemy, he is Hollow, like Sora—but Sora was good at the end, Sora was human at the end, why can’t he be?

She could give him a heart, she could teach him all about it and nurse the small bud he already had, they hadn’t had enough time in Las Noches, but they’d have forever if she brought him back—

Crush the heart you gave him, then, he _killed Kurosaki-kun, why isn’t that enough for you?_

Orihime’s eyes snap open, and she straightens up, breathing heavily, staring down with wide eyes at her clenched fists, the white of her dress stained by the black ashes. She stands up, quickly, unsteadily, her knees trembling.

“I’ll come back,” she breathes, over and over, as she rakes her fingers through her hair and dusts off her dress and winces at her bruises. “I’ll come back. I’ll come back. I’ll come back.”

As she stumbles over to Ishida-kun, she collapses to her knees, the dark world around her spinning. Without thinking, she instinctively envelopes him in her fullbring, reaching for him.

“Inoue-san,” he gasps at her touch on the back of his head, lifting it carefully from the bloody ground. “Inoue-san—“

“Quiet, Ishida-kun,” she murmurs, offering him a small, tense smile. “Please be quiet.”

He stares up at her with blue, hooded eyes burning with pain and desperation, worry and fear and a million other feelings Orihime could never hope to guess. Too weak to act on any of them, Ishida shuts his eyes and relaxes into her arms, and Orihime bends over him, brushes his hair off his wounded, sweating face. Ishida’s face, his face, what did it matter? Healing. Orihime heals.

“Don’t worry,” she whispers, seeing him, not seeing him, unable to _un_ see him. “I’m not leaving.”

In a way, Orihime never does.


End file.
